First concentrate on Big facts and get rid of Big Myths!

What is your opinion on Big Data? Is it a huge opportunity to help businesses get better insights for decision making? Is it more of a challenge and too big for most companies to manage? Or in terms of privacy, should Big Data even be considered a threat?

There are a lot of good reasons for each of these viewpoints, some are due to different interpretation of the given facts, others are more based on myths and rumors. Personally I think it is important to gather and evaluate information before coming to a conclusion. Information technology in general and Big Data in particular is going to affect many areas of life, private as well as business. Therefore I believe it would be useful for everybody to deal with this topic and to form an opinion.

But where shall we begin? Big Data still is some sort of a moving target. For instance, a few years ago Terabytes were still falling into this “Big Data bracket” yet in the meantime we are talking about Petabytes as common household size and Zettabytes (equals one billion Terabyte) are already coming into sight. As yet, there is a lot of blur and fuzziness on this topic, giving room for myths and beliefs. Even when we focus on the facts alone, apart from the sheer size, a lot of side aspects and discussions are still open.

So even for the experts and the “in crowd” it is sometimes not easy to stay on top of the developments. No surprise then, that generally interested newcomers to “Big Data” are easily deterred from this complexity.

In conclusion, before we can form an opinion, let’s look at what Big Data really is and even more importantly, what it is not. Over the past few years big data has been defined in many, many different ways, and so, it is not surprising that there is so much confusion surrounding the term.
This is exactly where our new whitepaper “The Facts, Myths and Realities Behind Big Data” might come into play.

The Whitepaper is not primarily aimed at the IT geeks as you would possibly expect at first sight. Of course, the latest technology shift is offering a wealth of opportunities and a cure to a number of problems IT departments have faced for years. However, as stated above, I would also like to involve the “non-techies” in the discussion because information technology in general and Big Data in particular is going to affect all of us. Personally, I would welcome the opportunity to have a lively discussion on this topic. In order to get this started, it might be helpful to use the whitepaper as a common framework.

The whitepaper is giving an introduction, an overview and orientation, on what Big Data already is, how it will evolve and what it will probably never be. It is a statement, how we are looking on things and what we expect to happen next. Our aim is to provide insights on current developments, to present some facts and some definitions, to deconstruct some myths and put away some red herrings as well. So make your Big Deal today and fetch out your personal copy now!